Month: September 2005

What a difference ten hours makes… maybe I’ll be heading north, too. You know, just because the drive would be so pleasant and care-free. Stay tuned to this space for the “returning exodus” pics in a few days.

Yep, that’s ten lanes of freeway (and three lanes of feeder road) heading north out of Houston; too bad it has to narrow down to four lanes about five miles north of the location in the picture! Easily, this is a clusterfook of massive propotions… can you imagine how long it will take all these cars to drive back into town once the bad weather has passed? We actually made an attempt at heading for higher ground earlier today, but after covering only six miles in four hours we turned around and decided to dig in. I’m sure we’ll lose power and I know my cable/RoadRunner will go, but at least I’ll be home.

I live in the far northern reaches of the greater Houston area… so far north, in fact, that my old band mates considered driving to my house to be a major outing. I mean, they’d pack a cooler! Come on!!

Anyways, we’re far enough away from Galveston to be safe from just about anything that comes in from the Gulf. The three evacuation zones set up by the local emergency management officials are a good hour’s drive. In the twenty-seven years I’ve lived in this area, my house has never flooded… not even close. What I’m getting at here is, me and my neighbors won’t be experiencing ten-foot flood waters IF Rita comes a-knockin’.

So, I am completely befuddled by the behavior exhibited by all of the locals on this side of town. The water aisle at Kroger tonight looked like it had been looted. The canned-goods section was torn apart. Batteries? Sorry… none left. People are acting like the end-times are just around the corner, and it’s hilarious to watch them squirm. The talk around the water cooler is just as humorous… people, smart people I work with every day, are certain their homes will be washed away this weekend.

I know there’s a chance that it could happen… anything could happen, right? But I’m willing to bet that besides the rain, this weekend will be just like any other and all those folk in line at Kroger tonight are gonna be drinking their ten gallons of drinking water and eating their stockpile of French-cut green beans, wondering maybe they over-reacted just a little bit.